OCLC Research and ALISE name recipients of 2011 Library and Information Science Research Grants

OCLC Research and ALISE name recipients of 2011 Library and Information Science Research Grants

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 1 February 2011—OCLC Research and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) have awarded research grants to Cristina Pattuelli of Pratt Institute, Chirag Shah of Rutgers University, and Bei Yu of Syracuse University. The awards were presented January 6 at the ALISE 2011 Annual Conference Awards Reception in San Diego, California.

Cristina Pattuelli, Ph.D., of the School of Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute, will investigate the application of one of the most popular linked data initiatives, the Friend of a Friend (FOAF) ontology, to digital cultural heritage resources. The project, "FOAF in the Archive: Linking Networks of Information with Networks of People," will use various digital archives containing materials related to the history of jazz as a test bed to explore the potential of FOAF to leverage people-centric data and metadata from multiple sources beyond the traditional repository’s walls.

Chirag Shah, Ph.D., of the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University, will perform a series of studies that include surveys, interviews and content analysis in the project, “Modalities, Motivations, and Materials – Investigating Traditional and Social Online Q&A Services.” The findings will provide insight into why and how people ask and answer questions on various online sources, the quality of information shared and retrieved, as well as the impact such information makes on an individual’s knowledge structure and decision-making.

Bei Yu, Ph.D., of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, will explore the information-seeking behavior in virtual reference services by conducting discourse analysis and utilizing machine-learning text classification systems. The goals of the project, “Text Classification of Digital Reference Interviews: an Investigation of Information Seeking Behavior in the Social Web Environment,” are to provide a new measurement for evaluating virtual reference services, new data attributes for information extraction/retrieval algorithms, and a dialogue model for fully-automated dialogue systems.

OCLC/ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grants support research that advances librarianship and information science, promotes independent research to help librarians integrate new technologies into areas of traditional competence, and contributes to a better understanding of the library environment. Full-time academic faculty (or the equivalent) in schools of library and information science worldwide are eligible to apply for grants of up to $15,000. Proposals are evaluated by a panel selected by OCLC and ALISE. Supported projects are expected to be conducted within approximately one year from the date of the award and, as a condition of the grant, researchers must furnish a final project report at the end of the grant period.

About ALISE

ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) is a non-profit organization that serves as the intellectual home of university faculty in graduate programs in library and information science in North America. Its mission is to promote excellence in research, teaching, and service and to provide an understanding of the values and ethos of library and information science. ALISE serves 500 individual members and more than 60 institutional members, primarily in the United States and Canada. For more information, visit www.alise.org.

About OCLC

Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC Web site.

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